


Meleager

by orbitaldiamonds



Category: Greek Mythology
Genre: F/M, Mythology - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-04-07
Updated: 2010-04-07
Packaged: 2017-10-08 18:30:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,115
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/78338
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orbitaldiamonds/pseuds/orbitaldiamonds
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A science-fiction re-write of the story of the <i>Bulfinch's Mythology</i> story of Meleager that I wrote for my Latin class as a Creative Project.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Meleager

Meleager

 

2071 A.C.E.

"I'm sorry, Mrs. Calydon, but as soon as the program finishes downloading, your son will die," said the three-headed robot Dr. Fates.

"But why?" asked Althea Calydon.

"You don't really expect an answer, do you?" retorted the dry humor of Dr. Fates's artificial intelligence.

Althea looked at her baby boy in his incubation chamber. She couldn't let her son die.

"I can't accept that," the young mother said. "She ejected the diskette, write-protected it, and stuffed it in her coat pocket. She took her son out of the chamber and wrapped him in a warm blanket.

They beat a hasty retreat.

\---

The child in question was Meleager Calydon, the genetically-engineered son of Althea Calydon, and her husband OEneus Calydon, president of Calydon Enterprises, which you might remember took out Quest Enterprises in 2035.

Now OEneus Calydon was quite a shady character. Besides his legitimate businesses like computers, sporting equipment, and elevators, he also dealt in Colombian drug cartels and Japanese doujinshi rings. In his haste to acquire more wealth, he overlooked paying Diana Artémiso, the leader of the Colombian Mafia.

Forgetting to pay the Mafia is a big mistake.

Diana Artémiso, in her anger, sent a computer virus -- codename BOAR -- to destroy Calydon Enterprises's systems.

Now OEneus may not have been the brightest light on the holographic chandelier, but his son was state-of-the-art. Part of his intelligence came from knowing when he needed help. To kill this invader, he brought in Theseus Macintosh, Pirithous Dell, Jason Gateway, Peleus Compaq (later father of Achilles Compaq), Telamon Pentium (later father of Ajax Pentium), and the young Nestor E. Apple II, among others.

Another, very notable addition to this group was Atlanta Windows-Microsoft, the intelligent and beautiful daughter of Iasus Microsoft, another leader in the computer industry. She had all the latest equipment, and she knew how to use it. Meleager fell in love almost instantly.

The team began by setting up a firewall and deploying search-nanoprobes.

Everyone donned their Virtual-Reality visors and logged onto WorldNet. From there, they swiftly navigated their way to the source of the problem: Calydon Enterprises's main computer. The VR visors translated all of this into a marsh.

The BOAR virus detected these prodigies and lashed out, rending, maiming, and tearing the VR bodies and destroying the neural nets of one after another of Unnamed Redshirts. None of them were of noble parentage, so it wasn't any great loss.

Jason, unbeknownst to any of the other heroes, was trying to get to the drug deals of Artémiso, asked her help in aiming his Magneto-Spear. She allowed the MS to touch, but nothing more. She liked his desperate butt-kissing, though. Maybe she could find a use for him at Gateway Industries.

It was Atalanta of Microsoft blood, with inborn ingenuity and software stolen from around the world, with a virtual arrow charged with energy from the firewall, who made the first mark on the cyber-beast. It crackled with white-hot electricity and screamed--a harsh, unpleasant sound.

"Atalanta has disabled it!" Meleager cried joyfully, as much to get her attention as to congratulate her.

Anceus, a new employee at Calydon, with only an entry-level position, had joined this mission looking for advancement, and it didn't appear to be doing him any good. How was he supposed to impress the boss's son when this..._female_ had just struck the first blow? Well, he'd show her.

"Is that the best you can do? Chick? Let the best do the rest." He charged the BOAR in t he same way Telemon had. This, and the anger of the femenist Artémiso, sent the self-absorbed little upstart to the Royal Order of Redshirts.

Theseus was able to adapt one of the search-nanoprobes into a grenade launcher, using contained magnets. This owuld have been effective, but something was deflecting the missiles. Things got worse when Jason decided to try his spear again and hit his improvised launcher, effectively shortint it out.

Meleager stepped to the forefront, and attacked from the side, hitting the BOAR's periphery with a blast of static electricity. He tried again, this time connecting and doing some real damage. He struck again and again, rushing and attacking.

Finally, a shout went up: "We got it!" and raucous nerdy laughter the likes of which hadn't been seen since _Revenge of the Nerds_ sounded throughout the Calydon Mainframe.

Meleager gave the remains of the virus to Atalanta. It was only fair, since she had gotten "first blood."

"Thank you," she said, and kissed him. Meleager was barely able to keep his mind in VR.

\---

Once they'd all logged out, Plexippus and Toxeus, two of Meleager's uncles who'd been in the hunting party, were jealous that Atalanta had gotten all the honor and fame out of all who had been there. They hacked into the system and stole the remains of the virus for themselves. They were the deserving ones, they rationalized.

Meleager didn't see it that way. They'd taken from a heroine, and what's more, they'd taken from the woman he loved. He drew his hand phaser and vaporized them on the spot.

\---

Althea was relieved that Meleager had been victorious, but when her tricorder read the phaser residue of her brothers, she fries a few circuits in the ol' brain and scraps her idea for a celebration of Meleager's victory, planning a memorial service for her brothers instead.

In the heat of her anger, she uses her high-profile access to break into the ward and boots up the computer in the ward where Meleager had been taken out of incubation. She took The Disk, the one that sealed her son's fate, and began to put it into the drive. She drew her hand back, unsure if what she was planning was right. This happened four times. _It's only fair_, she decided. _Why should OEneus celebrate while I am in mourning? An eye for an eye, I say! Well, I brought you into this world, Mellie, and watch me take you out!_

She finished the download.

The :::ding::: of completion seemed to be a deathly groan. It was the groan of her son, dying. He was courageous, and handled the pain regally. His only regret that he had died by a bloodless and dishonorable death, not having his brain electricity jerked across cyberspace as he fought for his life.

\---

Weeks later, Althea recovered from her grief and hysteria and realized what she had done. She took the coward's way out of guilt.

Meleager's systers were insonsolably sad and depressed, their grief never-ending and all-powerful over them...until Diana Artémiso invited them to be citizens of CyberNation, a WorldNet community, where they all became mindless drones.


End file.
